The Games We Play
by tiylaya
Summary: A new tactic by Spectra forces GForce to exhaustion and beyond.


**The Games We Play**

**A Battle of the Planets story **

This is a 'Battle of the Planets' story based on the 1979 reworking of the Japanese animated series 'Science Ninja Team Gatchaman' by Sandy Frank Associates. Characters and situations are used without permission.

This is my first Battle of the Planets story and was aimed to be read as if watching an episode of the series. Comments or suggestions would be welcome. Feel free to email me.

This story has mild violence as is in the nature of the series on which it was based. My best guess at a rating would be T (13+).

* * *

The Phoenix skimmed the surface of the wide blue ocean, sending up long streamers of white foam in its wake. Tiny felt the slight vibration of each wave they clipped, the tremors transferred through the big ship's frame and into the stick he held. He revelled in her responsiveness, knowing that at a slight touch from him, the Phoenix would soar to distant stars or plunge into the blue-tinged universe of the abyssal plains. Sighing contentedly, he leaned back into his chair, his eyes unfocused. 

"Smooth ride." Keyop's quiet burble broke the silence, but Tiny didn't object. As usual their young friend had encapsulated his complex emotion in simple words.

"Yeah."

"Well, don't dawdle, Tiny," Jason chided, but his tone was relaxed and teasing. "Get us home!"

"Oh, yes!" Princess cried. "I'm just longing to sit down and relax for a while."

"And just what are you doing now?" Jason asked, but again there was a playful edge to his slightly acidic tones.

From his seat to one side of Tiny's, their commander listened to G-Force banter. Another mission complete, and they were all still alive. Mark wasn't crippled by doubt by any means. No commander could afford that, but surely every commander experienced moments like this. Moments when he knew that his team's life had been in danger, and that he had brought them home. He had saved the world without paying for it in the lives of his friends.

Mark smiled. "Home sounds good to me," was all he said aloud.

"Big ten, commander. Taking her down," Tiny reported, sliding the Phoenix's controls forwards. The command ship slid under the waves with barely a shudder. Blue water closed over her, hiding the ship and her G-Force crew from the cares of the world.

* * *

Princess shook the residual moisture out of her hair and glanced into the mirror. Satisfied, she stepped out of her quarters and into the ready room onto which all their private rooms opened. In her own eyes her pretty face seemed pale and shadowed with weariness. She knew from experience though that the rest of the team wouldn't see it. The boys could be so sweet at times, flattering her outrageously. Usually she laughed off their casual flirtation, putting it down as equivalent to Jason's amused irritation with young Keyop, or Tiny's facade of indifference to anything but his next meal. Just another of those games that everyone played to keep their dignity and sanity intact. Just occasionally though, she saw the smouldering look in Mark's eyes when he thought she wasn't looking, and knew that they were playing a different game entirely. In those moments she could believe that she was beautiful. 

She paused to study Mark's lithe form as he and Jason continued their seemingly never-ending table tennis tournament. The two men moved swiftly and gracefully, their cerebronic implants granting them something of their transformed elegance, even without the boost of transmutation. Mark's blue eyes were focused and intent upon his opponent. He watched Jason's every motion with a practised eye, moving to intercept the ball almost before his friend returned it. Nonetheless, Princess was sure that he was aware of his presence. She moved further into the room and now the men's game paused momentarily as Jason noticed her. Keyop broke the silence with a sudden roll of his drums, the dramatic sound almost making Tiny choke on his space-burger. Princess blushed slightly at the fuss her entrance had caused. Leaving her guitar and her usual place on the stage aside, Princess dropped into a chair beside Tiny.

"I'm bushed," she declared, glancing up at Keyop with a smile. "I don't think I could hold a rhythm tonight if I tried."

The boy nodded, giving a tired chirp of his own. All of them had been exhausted by the day's events, but none of them were ready to retire to their own rooms. They would stay here for a while at least, enjoying one another's company and reminding themselves that beneath everything they were human beings, even in supernatural circumstances.

Hers wasn't the only groan that greeted the communication screen's instant chiming. Jason dropped his bat to the table with a clatter.

"What now?" he burst out angrily.

Mark moved around the table, patting the more volatile man calmingly on the shoulder, but even he couldn't keep the weariness from his voice as he spoke.

"Ears on, Zark," he reported simply. "What's up?"

The face of 7-Zark-7 filled the screen, his pseudo-G-Force cloak flapping behind him in his agitation. A small robot with delusions of grandeur, Mark thought, before realising that his tiredness was making him uncharitable. If Zark wanted to play at being a member of G-Force he was doing no harm, and he was undeniably a valuable asset to the Security operation. It was the delusions of others more dangerous that Zark, Zoltar of Spectra chief amongst them, that troubled them now.

"Oh, thank goodness you're all there and ready, commander," Zark exclaimed, his vocal indicators flashing in vivid colours and near-hypnotic patterns that followed the rhythm of his speech. "It's a red emergency, I'm afraid. Report to Chief Anderson for briefing at once!"

"But we're exhausted, Zark!" Princess exclaimed miserably. "Spectra's never launched two separate attacks in one day before. I'm so tired, I could sleep though a robot attack and not notice it!"

"Sleepy!" Keyop added with a few half-hearted warbles that conveyed his irritation without him needing to vocalise it.

"Save it for Anderson," Mark ordered shortly. "Zark can hardly control Zoltar's insanity."

"I do everything I can, Commander," 7-Zark-7 told him in a hurt tone.

Mark sighed.

"I'm sure you do, Zark." He knew his voice was more weary than reassuring. "I'm sure you do."

* * *

Earth Security Chief Anderson looked up from his computer as G-Force trailed into the room The team looked as tired as they must feel after their hard day's work, the exhaustion showing not so much in the shadows under their eyes as in the slump of their shoulders and the dragging of their feet. 

"I have to protest, Chief." Mark wasted no time in finding his voice. "We haven't even been fully debriefed on the last mission yet. We barely had time to shower!"

"Protest noted," Anderson said shortly. "Nonetheless, I must insist that you proceed. Does any one of you wish to summarise this afternoon's event?"

"A robot attacked. It tried to roast the Phoenix. We knocked it out of the sky." Jason summarised with a shrug. Mark shot him an annoyed look before refocusing on Anderson.

"What's all this about, Chief?"

Anderson nodded, approving of Mark's business-like tones.

"A robot creature landed in New Vela City an hour ago. Reports are sketchy, but apparently it resembles a huge armadillo."

Jason frowned.

"Didn't we deal with one of those a year or so back?"

"That's Spectra for you," Tiny noted in an amused tone. "No imagination."

Princess elbowed Tiny in the ribs, making him fall silent in surprise. "Go on," she told her chief.

"Thank you, Princess. Armadillo or not, this robot appears to release some form of electrical discharge weapon. It has shorted out the city's entire power grid. The initial reports of property damage were alarming, and with communications blacked out we he have no information on whether all the population reached shelters safely." He paused, looking around at the five dedicated young people in front of him. "I think we must consider this an attack by Spectra. The space armadillo must be stopped before it accomplishes Spectra's aims of terrorising our population or destroying Earth's manufacturing infrastructure.

"But Princess said it earlier," Jason argued. "Spectra's never attacked with two completely separate robots in one day before."

"This isn't the kind of game that has rules, Jason," Mark told him simply.

Anderson nodded. "But Jason has a valid point. Always before Zoltar has retreated to nurse his wounds after an encounter with G-Force. By contrast, in recent weeks the frequency and the severity of Spectran attacks have been increasing steadily. It would appear that Zoltar has resolved to stretch our resources regardless of the cost to himself. He surely believes that all Earth's mineral and technological wealth will be at his disposal to make up for what he has lost. G-Force and the Phoenix have been committed to combating incursions on five of the last seven days."

"Yeah," Tiny told them. "You should see the miles we have on the clock. The Phoenix must be due for her billion mile service any time now."

"Zoltar simply doesn't know when to quit," Jason added with bitter satisfaction. "We just keep blowing up anything he sends."

"Quiet, you two," Mark's order was gentle, but was obeyed with no less respect for that. His team turned towards him expectantly, and Anderson waited too. Mark was frowning, his hand stroking his chin in a gesture he had unconsciously picked up from Anderson himself. His eyes were downcast, and when he raised them to meet Anderson's there was both resignation and determination in them. Nonetheless, he tried once more. "Chief, I'm really not happy taking the team out unrested. I don't think we'll be at our best. I can't guarantee that we won't make mistakes."

"Robot planes can hem this invader in, Commander, but we're losing them faster than they can be replaced. Lives are in danger, Mark, and I need my best people out there on the scene. Tired or not, G-Force, you are the best!"

As he had expected the words played on their loyalty and pride, jolting the team out of their lethargy. They jerked to attention, raising their arms to their chests and crying 'G-Force' in unison. Anderson felt a twinge of guilt as they fled towards the door and the Phoenix, knowing that he had manipulated them, albeit with most of the team as willing victims. Since he had taken in the five orphan children, he had instilled in them the determination to place Earth's safety above all. Nonetheless, it was always a wrench to see them go, particularly knowing that Mark was right - he was sending a tired team into danger.

"Mark!"

His call stopped the commander in the doorway. There was a flash of anger in the young man's eyes. Anderson stretched out one hand in a gesture that was almost pleading. "If there was any other way ..."

Mark nodded, the anger softening. "I know."

* * *

"Coming up on target," Tiny reported, and his voice made the rest of the team jump. Mark glanced around, wondering if anyone had noticed his head nodding during their half hour journey. Princess was yawning and beside her, Keyop's head still rested on the console - his soft snores very audible above the hum of the Phoenix's motors. Jason cuffed the boy gently, and Keyop woke with his usual assortment of bird-like noises that seemed to lie just beyond the reach of human understanding. 

"Wake up, squirt," Jason said shortly, and Mark realised that the other man's brusqueness covered for his own unseen lapse.

Mark shook his head, dismissing the issue even as Keyop retaliated with a rude sound. His team were edgy and irritable, but they would calm when it came down to it. He leaned forward, his cloak billowing behind him even in the slight breeze of his motion.

"Where is it, Tiny?"

Tiny shrugged, peering through the forward window at the buildings far below.

"You tell me," he told them.

Princess nodded and turned back to her monitor, bringing the Phoenix's sensitive detectors on line. An image of the shattered city filled all the screens. Some buildings had collapsed under the robot armadillo's onslaught, filling the skies with a pall of dust. Others stood in precarious balance, missing roofs or side-walls like the ruins of some ancient civilisation.

The team watched in silence. The streets passed below them until they passed suddenly into a broad and once-attractive plaza. The space armadillo was clawing at the wall of a building on the edge of that open space, its size almost impossible to comprehend until they realised that the creature's head was level with the building's eighth story. The enormous head turned slowly towards them as the Phoenix hove into view. The overlapping plates of its thick shell grated over one another, the metallic sound setting their teeth on edge even above the roar of the Phoenix's engine. The hulking creature lifted one immense leg, and walls and vehicles alike shattered under its powerful footfalls. This wasn't a graceful flying machine, or even one of the many Spectra robots designed to attain flight by the use of powerful rocket motors. This was a tank, designed to crush and destroy by sheer mass alone. These were the hardest Spectra vehicles to deal with, their shells tough enough to withstand virtually all aerial bombardment, their joints and junctions too robust to cripple with a lucky shot or any light weapon.

The armadillo moved again, its heavy foot crushing an abandoned tramcar and putting the entire construct into perspective. The creature was a hundred metres tall, towering over all but the highest skyscrapers. It reared, lifting its forward feet for a moment before they crashed to the ground with an impact which made buildings tremble. It tried again, craning its head back to spit a stream of crackling power at the Phoenix.

Tiny jerked the ship downwards, flying the Phoenix between the giant armadillo's forward legs and parking it beneath the creature's armoured chest.

"Good, Tiny!" Mark told him. "It can't get us here." He craned his head back to peer at the electric light crackling around the robot's mouth. "What was that?"

"Some kind of energy beam," Jason shrugged impatiently. "Who cares?" He moved forwards to stand above the Phoenix's main missile controls and peered into the view-screen, searching for some target. "Let's blow this thing and get out of here."

"You'll hear no argument from me," Mark told him. "But, Tiny, keep us out of that beam. I have a bad feeling about it."

A warble from Keyop drew all their attention. "Robot moving," the boy pointed out. Indeed, the armadillo had lifted a heavy rear foot and now it came crashing down, the robot attempting to shuffle backwards and expose the ship sheltering under its bulk. Tiny took the Phoenix forward instead, and the streamlined vessel surged out from between the robot's rear legs, swinging in a tight arc around its thrashing tail. The spiked tail-tip passed them with mere metres to spare before annihilating a tall tree that stood in the ruined plaza. Its mighty trunk fell into an apartment block, knocking out one wall and exposing several storeys of rooms.

"Look!" Princess's cry drew all their eyes to the ruined apartments, and they saw the faces there - shocked, pale faces of civilians who had been unable to reach the shelters before the city's infrastructure broke down.

The team reacted as one mind, the Phoenix swung around in a tight loop, forcing the robot armadillo to focus upon it and turn away from the vulnerable people. At the same time, Jason strafed its sides, targeting each missile on a joint in the creature's armour. Keyop's eyes scanned the sensor readouts, checking the effects of the impacts.

"Take us up!" Mark ordered when they were almost 180 degrees from their starting point, and the Phoenix surged upwards into a roaring climb. The acceleration and gravity combined to press G-Force back into their contoured and padded chairs. Crackles of electric beam power chased them. Even in the strain of their climb, Tiny swung the ship from side to side in an effort to avoid it - only the brute strength of his powerful arm muscles letting him fight the gee forces and manipulate the controls.

They held the climb for thirty long seconds before Tiny levelled them off, letting them all catch their breaths.

"We have to go back," Princess said at once. "Those poor people!"

Jason nodded, but he smacked one fist into his palm in frustration. "We didn't even dent the thing!"

Keyop burbled urgently. "Did dent," he contradicted.

They all looked sharply at him, and Mark swung himself out of his chair in a flurry of white wings. The commander peered over Keyop's shoulder, scanning the readouts for himself. "Switch to infrared view," he ordered.

Where the shell of the armadillo had seemed impervious to their blasts, the cooling metal clearly showed lines of strain and fracture in the longer wavelength light. The armadillo was hiding it well, but the Phoenix's attack had hurt it. And if they'd hurt it once they could do it again.

"Just give the word, Commander," Jason said gladly. "And we'll blow it to dust!"

Mark swept back to his seat, his winged cape folding neatly beneath him. He reached out for his seat belt. "Buckle up!" he ordered shortly. "Tiny, power dive. We're going to ram it. Jason, blow us a hole!"

"Big ten, Mark," Tiny acknowledged, swinging the vessel into an ever steepening descent.

"Aye, aye, commander," Jason echoed, his finger poised above the ship's firing button.

* * *

If the climb had been a strain, their descent was frightening. The Phoenix plummeted nose downwards, and her engines burst into blue light as Tiny threw the ship's full power into the dive. The ground grew in their view-screen, the curve of the planet vanishing into an ever-narrowing view of the country, then the city, then the neighbourhood and finally the plaza below them, with the armadillo looming and rearing above it. 

Tiny piloted them with an innate skill, dodging the rays of energy beams as the armadillo tried to spit at them. At the same time, the Phoenix responded with a barrage of its own. Missiles preceded them in their dive, their rocket engines driving them above even the Phoenix's incredible speed. Midway through their dive, Jason added energy beams to the physical bombardment, until the back of the armadillo was barely discernable through the smoke and fiery glow.

G-Force braced themselves for the impact as Princess read off the distance to the ground from her monitors. They were still one hundred and twelve feet from the ground when the reinforced nose of the ship burst through the softened and fractured metal of the armadillo's back plates. The smaller ship buried herself up to half her length in the mechanisms of the alien device. Computers and mechanical linkages, already weakened by the bombardment, crunched around them, sending ripples even through the acceleration dampeners of the Phoenix.

For a moment there was silence as the Phoenix came to a rest. The members of G-Force lay across their consoles or slumped back in their chairs, shaken by the impact. Mark stirred first, blinking his bright blue eyes in an effort to clear the ringing in his head. The forward windows were dark, buried in the infrastructure of the armadillo. The light in the Phoenix's cabin was red-tinged as the ship complained against her rough treatment. Nonetheless, a quick look around told Mark that neither his ship nor his friends had suffered any critical damage.

"Tiny!" Mark called sharply, and the big man lifted his head.

"What ...? Where ...?"

"Tiny, get us out of here!"

Tiny shook himself and reached for the Phoenix's controls. "Big ten, commander."

The Phoenix tore itself free with a screech of tortured metal, levelling off as Tiny lifted the nose clear of the damaged robot. For a few seconds, the Phoenix hung above the armadillo as it wobbled on unsteady legs. Fire roared from the hole in its back, flames reaching towards the sky and the hovering Phoenix. Slowly, ponderously, the armadillo lifted one foot as if trying to flee, and it froze in that position, clearly unable either to lower the foot or to raise a second. Electric power crackled around the creature's open mouth, not quite forming a coherent beam.

"Let's finish it off!" Jason exclaimed, reaching for the missile switch. Mark caught his wrist with the ease of long practice.

"Wait. If that thing blows up here, the people in those buildings won't stand a chance, We have to get down there." He looked past Jason to Tiny, still holding the other man's hand away from the trigger. "Tiny, you keep an eye on that beast. Let us know if it stirs." The commander looked around at the rest of his crew, "Let's go!"

* * *

The Phoenix's top bubble opened and wind whipped G-Force's cloaks into a flurry of motion. Then those cloaks snapped open, became wings, and filled with the wind. White wings flashed past green and blue as G-Force soared into the air. 

Mark landed in a crouch, his white wings furling neatly around him. To either side of him, Princess and Jason settled with an ease that seemed to defy such petty concerns as gravity, her pale wings and his dark ones forming an elegant contrast. Keyop landed a little behind them, and if the boy's landing lacked a certain grace, then that could perhaps be excused given all they'd been through today. The boy burbled an apology, and Mark dismissed it with a wave of his hand. With a single leap, the commander was airborne once again, soaring to the uppermost floor of the ruined apartment block. The elderly couple hiding there gazed at him with a mixture of relief and fearful awe. Mark approached them with hands extended in reassurance, even as the rest of his team scattered behind him.

Gradually, people began to gather at street level, collected by Jason and Keyop and urged towards the nearest underground access for their own protection. They moved slowly, with frequent anxious looks at the massive machine that hissed and creaked above them. Some were elderly. Others clutched children to them - some clinging to their parents in fear, others seemingly in favour of exploring this massive new toy that had dropped into their neighbourhood. A few of the children seemed to be completely alone, and these Keyop or Jason pressed into the care of one of the adults. There would be time later to reunite families and assess the cost of this day. For now, preserving lives had to be the first priority.

* * *

It was probably no more than a few minutes, although it felt like hours, before Tiny's cry roused the tired team from the semi-dazed routine into which they'd fallen. 

"Look at the robot!"

Mark spun, his cloak wings swirling in a graceful arc around him. There was fear on his face as he looked up, expecting to see the enormous device collapsing or glowing with the imminence of some catastrophic explosion. What he saw was worse. The armoured plates that formed the armadillo's sides were opening outwards with a shriek of tortured metal. The side scales had not escaped damage from the Phoenix's bombardment. They opened jerkily with a series of stops and jerks, but they opened nonetheless, and from beneath each burst a smaller craft. These little vehicles were streamlined and sharply pointed - attack craft. Their yellow metal plating glinted brightly in the dust-shrouded sun as they divided into two groups with a roar of rocket engines and a gale of displaced air. The more distant group turned towards the circling Phoenix, climbing towards her with an alarming turn of speed. The second group turned earthwards, towards the ruined buildings, and only then did Mark realise that he'd been staring open mouthed at the sight.

His team assembled around him, somersaulting through the air in a blur of blue, green and white. They flanked him, presenting a united front to the aggressors, but Mark hesitated as they turned to him for command. He had seen the awkwardness in their motions, a slowing of their reaction time that would be unnoticeable to an outsider, but which could get them killed in a firefight. He knew his own response had been no better.

Grimly he set his mouth in a firm line. 'I told Jason that this game had no rules,' he thought to himself, 'but I was wrong. Spectra has been playing to its own rules the whole time. They just didn't tell us what they were.' Spectra had driven them to this, the whole series of relentless attacks leading to this moment and to G-Force standing exhausted exactly where Zoltar wanted them.

"It's a trick," Jason said angrily from Mark's right hand, echoing his thoughts. "An ambush."

"Sneaky!" Keyop volunteered with a series of outraged noises.

Princess sighed. "But they're using live bait."

Mark clenched his fists angrily at his sides. He looked up to see the few remaining civilians hiding in their ruined apartments, and his expression became determined.

"You three get the people out of here. I'll keep these off you."

He sensed their reluctance. Jason took a step forward.

"Mark, you'll need back-up!" he protested.

The commander looked up at the hovering attack ships. With one hand, he pulled his sharp-winged boomerang from his belt and flicked its blades open.

"Go," he said simply as he leaped into the air.

* * *

After that there was a chaos of noise and motion. Mark's boomerang sang through the air, shattering viewing ports, severing fuel lines and unerringly returning to his hand as he somersaulted through open space. He bounced off ruined buildings and alien ships, using powerful flexes of his legs to reverse his momentum without ever losing speed. The assault craft turned in confusion, some firing on their allies as they attempted to track the erratic and fast moving target, others colliding in the confined space. 

Mark moved in a hyper-aware daze of exhaustion. The blasts of the attackers' weapons flashed past him with ever narrower margins, even as they throbbing ache in his legs grew. Distantly, he was aware of the fireballs that erupted as assault craft fell out of the sky, and his team herding frightened civilians past them. Mark herded the little ships in turn, directing the conflict into sectors of the sky that seemed unoccupied by his friends' multicoloured wings. More distant still, he caught glimpses of the Phoenix, brief flashes of red and blue amidst the yellow shells of the assault craft that swarmed it. There was little time for the commander to watch his ship now though. He could only fight for his life and trust his team to protect their own.

Slowly, the skies began to clear. Twenty or more small fighters lay in burning wreckage below Mark's soaring wings. Only five craft hung in the sky now and for a long heartbeat, Mark couldn't understand why they were facing away from him. Then he saw the sweep of a white cloak, so similar to his own, and once again his heart was in his mouth. Princess crouched beside a bed, exposed by the missing wall of an apartment. Beneath it - barely visible - two small forms were hiding. The children's cries were scarcely audible above the noise of battle, but there was a piercing note to their screams that reached Mark even now. Princess seemed unable or unwilling to leave them, but Mark saw the tension in her posture. She knew there were weapons pointing at her unprotected back.

Mark didn't need to think. He flipped in mid air, pushing off the still-standing wall of an apartment block with all the force his powerful leg muscles could exert. He somersaulted through unsupported space, landing in a clumsy crouch and straightening to place himself between the assault ships and their prey, spreading his wings to hide Princess and the children from view. Mark stood tall and proud, trying not to think of how much his legs ached from that landing, how tired his arms were after the seemingly never ending fight. He braced, ready to launch himself at the nearest of the five remaining ships, and then froze. The noses of those little craft had begun to glow, their mouths rippling with the same crackles of electric light that had adorned the mouth of the armadillo a little earlier. Mark looked from one to the next in helpless indecision. Whichever of the ships he targeted first, its four companions would be free to fire on Princess and the undefended children.

A maniacal laugh cut through the standoff. Mark grimaced at the hateful familiarity of the sound. The viewport of the central ship shifted from opaque to transparent, and Mark gritted his teeth as Zoltar threw back his head and roared with laughter. From the corner of his eyes, the commander caught sight of Keyop and Jason turning towards the sound of their arch adversary. He felt Princess reacting too, her enticements to the children becoming still more anxious and desperate. Mark tried to tune out the distractions. He concentrated solely on Zoltar's distinctive silhouette as the voice of Spectra's leader was projected towards him.

"Fools! G-Force, you are exactly where I wanted you!"

Mark looked from the shattered assault craft to the smoking hulk of the huge armadillo with a studied insolence.

"Oh, really?"

"Pah! I care nothing for such petty losses. The robot was expendable, the ships piloted by fools. what should I care for such trivial concerns when the commander of G-Force himself stands helpless in my sights?" He didn't give Mark time to respond to the rhetorical question, but turned instead to his underlings. He raised one clenched fist. "Fire!"

* * *

Jason turned at the sound of Zoltar's voice, giving the civilians a shove to keep them moving. These were the last few, he realised with relief. Soon he would be free of this chore. They joined up with the group Keyop was leading to safety, moving towards the subway access the boy had located. Keyop hesitated too, before a sharp gesture from Jason kept him moving with the civilians. Someone had to see the civvies to safety. 

Jason himself watched though, peering up at the apartment six floors above the ground and almost twenty meters from his position. Mark stood with arms extended and wings outspread. Jason clenched his fist in frustration, seeing his friend's dilemma, even as Mark did the same. The electric fire on the assault craft's noses cast a strange light on the commander's face making his expression unreadable, but long experience told Jason what he would see there; Mark's determination and certainty were written in every line of his body. Jason crouched, ready to spring into the air and fly to his commander's side, but he hesitated, uncertain as to whether his action would help or merely distract his friends at a crucial moment. Then Zoltar gave the order to fire.

* * *

Princess reached under the bed, dragging the screaming children from its ineffectual protection. She swept them off the edge of the ruined building's floor, her wings snapping open to support her and the children. Nonetheless, overburden as she was, she began to tumble.

* * *

Mark stood, arms extended still, his legs braced to escape, but hesitating to give Princess and her young charges time to get clear. For a moment there was honest fear on Mark's face, and then the Commander was enveloped in blue light.

* * *

Princess tumbled to the ground, landing in a blur of limbs and wings, but Jason was there to cushion her fall and lift the sobbing children from her tight embrace. Princess pulled herself to her feet, and both her eyes and Jason's turned desperately back to their commander. Mark was silhouetted against the actinic glare, his expression almost obscured by the background glow. Only brief highlights and the occasional flare of an electric spark revealed his silent scream. The commander's limbs trembled, jerking spasmodically as the electric power played over his nerves. The edges of his cloaked wings began to curl, the unique fabric starting to melt under the beam's bombardment. In the occasional spark of light, Mark's expression was one of desperate agony. 

"Mark!" Princess's strangled gasp tore Jason's eyes away from Mark and to her face. The look of anguish there shocked him, and he took an involuntary step towards her. His movement was too slow, too hesitant. Princess launched herself into the air before he could stop her, her yo-yo weapon flicking out to wrap around the nose of one of the ships. Its cord snapped taut, giving her the impetus to swing up and around. She flew through the electric light in a graceful arc, her momentum carrying both her and Mark out of the beam of power. They collapsed on the unstable floor of the children's bedroom, an unmoving pile of white feathers.

The Spectra ships hung unmoving for long seconds before the electric beam began to move, turning back towards the prone members of G-Force. Keyop's bolas came out of nowhere, its two weights wrapping around the barrel of the electric gun until they converged in a blast which rocked the assault craft. The other small vessels rocked too and it took Jason several seconds to realise that his own gun was in his hand, firing explosive darts towards their targets with little intervention from Jason's rational thought. He soared into the air and saw Keyop moving to mirror his action, blue wings and green casting long shadows across the now struggling assault craft. Two of the vessels collided, their pilots blinded by a shattered view-screen, or simply distracted by the acrobatics of the enraged G-Force team.

"Coming in for pickup," Tiny's voice burst from their wrist communicators as the Phoenix blew the last of her attackers from the sky. Jason acknowledged the report grimly, his eyes on the final assault craft - Zoltar's ship. He leapt, aiming to hammer his way through its forward port by brute force alone if that proved necessary. As if sensing his intent, the little craft fired its rockets and sped out of his reach, its nose pointing skywards as it sought to flee the rapidly approaching Phoenix.

Jason flipped in midair, flaring his wings to slow his fall as he landed in a crouch beside where Mark and Princess lay. He lifted the commander in his arms, Keyop lifting Princess away at the same moment. They launched themselves upwards, the boy struggling under even Princess's lesser weight. Then the blue and red nose of the Phoenix edged under them, allowing them to land in her central bubble and lay Princess and Mark gently down on the sinking platform.

Jason burst in the Phoenix's central cabin like an avenging whirlwind to find that Tiny had already pointed the ship's nose upwards. His blue-gloved finger stabbed at the firing button again and again, sending one missile after another towards Zoltar's fleeing escape craft. Eventually though simple practicality stopped him. The Phoenix's launching bays reported empty, the firing button becoming unresponsive under his stabbing finger.

Tiny seemed to share his fury. "The coward!" the big man exclaimed, even as he levelled out the ship's climb. He sighed, glancing over at Jason. "At least those kids got underground," he noted.

Jason glanced back at him and nodded, realising for the first time that in his fury he had quite forgotten the children left behind in his assault on the Spectra ships. He opened his mouth to muster some sort of reply, but a sob from Keyop silenced him, silenced them both.

They turned to where Keyop knelt before the still forms of their friends. The boy's face was pale, tears streaming down his cheeks. He looked up at them with trembling lips.

"Think they're dead," Keyop told them, and even his usual warbles sounded shocked and mournful. Jason stared at him, and then he was sweeping out of his seat, and falling to his knees by Mark's side. He took his friend's arm, pressing his fingers alongside Mark's wrist activator. He froze, barely breathing, focusing all his attention on Mark, willing himself to feel something ... anything.

There ... was that a heartbeat? And again.

He released his held breath with an explosive gasp. "There's a pulse," he said grimly. "Weak and erratic, but it's there." He reached past Mark, gently lifting Princess's wrist to check on her too. "We need to get them to a hospital. Tiny, get us home - fast!"

Tiny turned back to his controls, his face grim. He reached forward, throwing all the Phoenix's power into her forward motion and her journey homeward.

"You got it!"

* * *

Anderson waited by the medical team, sharing their frustration as the Phoenix's water-lock seemed to empty with deliberate slowness. He bowed his head, trying to dismiss the worst case scenarios running through his head, but unable to do so. 

Jason had sounded shell-shocked on the radio as he called in the request for a medical team, and Tiny had almost ploughed into Center Neptune's ocean doors before they opened wide enough to admit the ship. What could drive G-Force to such panic? What could have happened to Mark and Princess?

There were still pools of water on the hanger floor when the team jumped down from their command ship, the two invalids cradled in the strong arms of Jason and Tiny. There was an alarming stillness to them, a seeming lifelessness that the medics appeared to sense. They surged through as soon as the hanger doors would open, taking the two patients and laying them on trolleys to be rushed to Center Neptune's hospital wing.

Anderson followed the trolleys and was aware that the rest of G-Force were trailing him. The doors to the hospital wing closed against them, shutting them all out, but not before Anderson caught a glimpse of Mark being hooked up to a full life support rig. The security chief closed his eyes, bowing his head in anxiety and guilt. He looked up to find Jason's head bowed too and Keyop's face buried in Tiny's cloak. Tiny's eyes were filled with tears, gazing helplessly at the sealed doorway. Anderson shook himself, studying the young people in his care. He was responsible for this. He had an obligation to hold this team together.

"We'll wait for news in my office," he told them aloud. "Let's go." Jason looked up sharply, his eyes slipping from Anderson's face to that grey metal door. Anderson lowered his voice. "We can't do any good just standing here, Jason."

The young man swung a tightly clenched fist, his frustration leaving a dent in the thick metal wall plates. His arm fell to his side, his eyes sinking to the ground once more. His blue wings wrapped themselves around him, forming a protective shell between him and the world, as he nodded.

* * *

Anderson sank gratefully into the chair behind his desk. The three G-Force members sat on the sofa opposite, Keyop still curled into Tiny's side. Anderson leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him. Compassion filled him as he studied the pale faces of three young men he had taken under his wing as children. He forced the emotion aside. He couldn't afford to let his thoughts become personal now - he couldn't afford to think of this team, of Princess and Mark, as people. 

"Alright, Jason. What happened?"

Jason stirred in his seat, clearly wanting to pace the room. Exhaustion won out over nervous energy, and he sank more deeply into the sofa in an attitude of abject depression.

"That energy weapon you mentioned; Mark was caught in it. Princess dived in to knock him out." Jason shook his head. "I should have acted earlier ... moved more quickly."

Tiny looked up in surprise, shaking his head. "You had those kids to worry about too."

"Kids?" Anderson queried sharply.

Gradually, he drew the full story out of them, all three describing what they had seen and done. Anderson sighed, reading what they were not saying from what they said. The team had been tired even before starting this mission. That exhaustion had coloured their actions and their judgement. Spectra had played a long game in setting this trap, and he had ordered G-Force straight into it.

He jumped as the phone on the wall of his office rang, its electronic warble seeming unusually loud and jarring. He wasn't the only one to react. Keyop started violently, and Jason's eyes locked on the telephone as if it were the herald of his own doom. Anderson jerked the handset out of its cradle as much to stop the grating noise as to hear the report.

"Anderson," he snapped before pausing to listen, then "I see," and "keep me informed." He replaced the handset with a heavy gesture.

"Well?" Jason demanded.

Tiny leaned forward in his chair, "Tell us, chief."

"Their cerebronic implants are failing," Anderson told them bluntly. "They're misfiring - sending random signals to Mark and Princess's neuronal systems."

Tiny blinked. "What does that mean?" he asked uncertainly.

Jason swept out of his chair, pacing the room once before leaning against the wall with his eyes downcast and his arms crossed. "It means they're dying."

"It's leading to multiple organ failure," Anderson confirmed bleakly. He turned to stare into the blue depths which lay outside his window. "We can stabilise them for a while - a few days perhaps - but we can't stop the deterioration."

"No," Jason said flatly. "No, I won't give up on Mark and Princess so easily. Mark's strong. He'll fight this."

Anderson sighed.

"None of us are giving up, Jason. Now get some rest," he added. He listened to their protests and dismissed them. "You're all exhausted. Making yourselves ill won't help Princess or Mark now."

* * *

The three young men fell asleep within minutes, despite their concern. Watching on his monitors, Anderson nodded to himself in satisfaction. He deactivated the security cameras in each room as Keyop began to whimper in his sleep. He didn't need to watch. He knew that all three would suffer nightmares that night. 

Wearily, the security chief stood and headed down to the medical centre, knowing that a long night lay ahead of him too. The room in which Mark and Princess had been put was quiet now, the effort to save their lives shifting away from the victims themselves and towards the research wings of Center Neptune. In the darkened room, only the lights and soft chimes of the life support systems betrayed that the stillness was that of a deeply unnatural sleep. Those systems were no more that a temporary measure. Already a sheen of perspiration dampened Mark's brow, his fever a symptom of the damage that misfiring neural signals were causing to every system in his body.

Anderson laid a hand on that damp forehead and felt the heat there.

"I'm sorry," he said briefly, before seating himself and opening his portable computer. Sitting between his young wards, unwilling to leave them alone, Anderson logged into the technical mainframe of Center Neptune and set to work.

* * *

Jason tossed and turned in his sleep, the day's events playing and replaying in front of his dreaming eyes. Mark stood wreathed in blue fire, and yet his accusing eyes were strangely clear - blue on blue. His gaze was bitter, almost hateful, and his voice rang in Jason's ears. "You could have stopped this, Jason. You knew there was a threat. You could have saved us both." 

Jason, still wrapped in the dream, wrapped his arms around his head, trying to shut out the sight. Princess's laughter made him lower his arms. The laughter rang out, light and carefree. Then it changed. The sound became bitter as Princess's yo-yo flicked out, its cord wrapping around Jason's neck. "You could have stopped me, Jason," she said as he started to suffocate. "You were too slow, too much of a coward to go in my place."

Jason's dream vision began to fade, blackness creeping across his eyes. And above everything, Zoltar's constant laughter was a grating accusation.

"No! Princess, no!" Jason cried out with his last breath, and his own voice woke him. He gasped for air through a throat raw from shouting. The edges of other, half-remembered dreams caught at him as he sat up in his bed with a jerk. He panted, trying to disentangle the reality of his darkened room from the dark nightmares that assaulted him.

His breathing calmed and he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, leaning over to lower his face into his hands. He looked up with bloodshot eyes.

"What am I doing?" he asked himself in a loud, angry voice. "How can I sleep while ...?"

He pulled on a T-shirt before prowling the corridors. The few Center Neptune personnel out and about in the early hours of the morning acknowledged his presence with subdued salutes and respectful nods. Jason ignored them, simply striding purposefully onwards. He looked in either direction before slipping into the room where his teammates had been put, wary of anyone witnessing his weakness. He wasn't expecting to find someone else already there.

"Couldn't you sleep, Jason?" Chief Anderson looked up wearily from his screen. He glanced from Princess to Mark and sighed before turning back to the newcomer. G-Force's taciturn and most impulsive member leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed and his eyes averted. He didn't ask if there was any change, knowing that Anderson would have volunteered any such news. "Bad dreams?" Anderson pressed. Jason didn't answer, and that was an answer in itself.

"When are we going after Zoltar?" the young man asked suddenly.

Anderson sighed.

"You're not. I'm standing G-Force down for at least two weeks." He looked sadly down at the patients. "Whatever happens."

Now Jason reacted, pushing away from the doorframe and glaring angrily. "What! Chief, how could you? We can't let Zoltar get away with ... with this!"

"We won't. I'm sending robot fighters and putting all our security forces on high alert, but we can't play Spectra's game any longer." Anderson closed his computer's screen with a snap, and with its illumination removed his face was hidden in the room's long shadows. "Jason, Mark faced a judgement call today and he made the wrong decision." He raised a hand to still Jason's automatic protest. "Hear me out. Mark should have ensured that the Spectra robot was neutralised before moving on. If he had been alert and well rested, he would not have made that mistake. I had a decision to make too. I let my anger at Spectra's incursion override my concern about your team's exhaustion. I ignored the recommendation of your commander, and my own instincts. G-Force should never have been sent on that last mission, and I will carry that mistake with me for the rest of my life."

Anderson looked up in surprise as Jason closed the gap between them and lay a hand on his shoulder.

"Chief, you can't blame yourself for what happened. It's your job to send us out."

"And it's my job to decide when it's too dangerous. I will not send you and Tiny and Keyop to your deaths because you're too exhausted to defend yourselves."

Jason opened his mouth to protest, his instinctive reaction to deny Anderson's projection. The chief stopped him. Jason would understand the reasoning if given time, and prevented from allowing his own impulsiveness to rule his actions.

"Jason, you have a decision to make here too. Tiny and Keyop are looking to you for leadership. Don't let your need for revenge get all three of you killed." The security chief sighed. He flicked his computer screen open and uploaded his research notes to the medical effort's clearinghouse server. "I need to get in a few hours rest. Will you stay with them?"

Jason looked down at his unconscious friends and wrapped his arms around himself. He nodded silently.

* * *

Keyop crept into the medical room as dawn's light began to filter through Center Neptune's submarine windows. For a while they sat together, but there was none of the usual banter between them - only an anxious and watchful silence. Finally tired of the strain, Jason left his young friend to the constant vigil. There was a hushed air over the centre this morning. The scientists, usually dedicated to combating Spectra's threats to the planet's environment or technical infrastructure, had abandoned their own research to focus on the malfunctioning cerebronic implants. The technicians and support staff worked on their own tasks, managing the repair and restocking of the Phoenix with a kind of grim determination. 

Tiny was in the main cabin of the Phoenix when Jason wandered in, pressing buttons and making note of the results half-heartedly. A half-eaten spaceburger by his side gave evidence that even Tiny's appetite was suffering.

"How's it going?" Jason asked, dropping into the chair beside his friend. Tiny shrugged.

"She's almost ready to go ... for all the good it does," Tiny told him. There was a tired and upset tone to his voice.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm nothing but a glorified taxi service, Jason. What use am I, honestly? I wasn't even in the same fight as the rest of you. I might as well not have been there."

Jason leaned back in his chair and folded his arms to his chest, the gesture giving him time to think. What was this - share your insecurities day? Or was there always this kind of self-recrimination after one of their less successful missions? How many times in the years since they were children had Jason himself turned to Mark asking for forgiveness for his perceived lapses? The commander always had something reassuring to say - but Mark wasn't here now, was he?

"Tiny, I have never seen a better pilot than you are," he said honestly. "The Phoenix is hardly the lightest and most manoeuvrable bird in the sky, but in your hands she can make even a Rigan fighter look clumsy! How many times have we destroyed a Spectran robot without even leaving the command ship? We wouldn't be here now if you and the Phoenix weren't there for us! Don't put yourself down."

Tiny was looking more cheerful already, the big man's character not given to introspection. "I guess I am a pretty useful chap to have around," he admitted, folding his hands behind his head. "Thanks, Jase."

Jason sighed mentally in relief. He'd never realised how hard it must be for Mark to cope with so many doubts. Outwardly though, his expression remained grim and anxious. Tiny shot him a sidelong glance, his own expression mixing concern with reassurance now.

"There's still time, Jason. I'm sure the chief will come up with something," he volunteered. "He's a whiz when it comes to scientific stuff."

Jason glanced over at him, trying to judge how much of what he said Tiny believed and how much was no more than an attempt at self-delusion. Then he remembered that he was playing the role of the strong leader. "Sure, Tiny," he said, swinging out of his chair and heading towards the hatch that led forward to his car. "Whatever you say."

* * *

Keyop's quiet sobbing drew Anderson into the medical room. He had meant to pass by, doing no more than glancing through the windows ... as he had every few hours since leaving Jason there in the deep night. Anderson's work was too important, too crucial to Earth's security, to put on hold indefinitely. Already this morning he had been forced to spend several hours deploying the security resources of the galactic federation and assigning teams to the recovery work in New Vela City. But every moment he could spare was dedicated to the matter that outweighed everything but Earth's survival itself in his mind. What had gone wrong with Princess and Mark's implants? How could it be fixed? 

He worked with a single minded intensity, growing ever more frustrated that the entire research division of Center Neptune had made virtually no progress in the hours since the Phoenix had returned. Ironic that the very devices that would usually heal Mark and Princess of such injuries were the cause of the problem. Just about the only conclusion they had reached was a negative one: the implants couldn't simply be deactivated or even surgically removed. The shock of such a drastic solution would kill the two G-Force members as surely as inactivity would - and far more quickly.

Anderson tried not to think of such things. He had to remain clinical - detached. For that same reason he hadn't dared spend more time with the patients since waking. It was too painful to see Mark and Princess, his wards since they were both orphaned years before, lying like broken things. When he gazed at them rationality fled. All he could think of were the wasted days, the months when his wards had seen little of their distant and overworked guardian, the years when he had sent them away to the best boarding schools.

He had never planned to start a family, but how could he refuse when first Mark, and then Princess and Jason, had been left to his care by old friends and colleagues who sacrificed everything in the battle for their planet? At first he had intended to have little to do with them, entrusting their care to nurses and tutors. Always though there was some call on their guardian's attentions, and he had found himself drawn into the everyday drama of their childhood. He had become enchanted by these serious and intelligent youngsters, and had listened to Mark's plea to adopt his friend Tiny - the only military orphan in his isolated fishing village. When Anderson's efforts had liberated Keyop from the unauthorised and unethical laboratory that created him, the four children had welcomed their strange little brother with a willingness that made Anderson proud of them all. They accepted him in his entirety, protecting him against the slights of less compassionate children until it became clear that he could protect himself.

It had been a logical step for Anderson to invite his wards to train for the new G-Force. All five had accepted eagerly, their loyalty to their planet and willingness to fight for it crystallised by their years under Anderson's wings. Chief Anderson himself had overseen their cerebronic augmentation and watched as the team transmuted for the first time. He had been there when they had taken their first hesitant flights with the nervous yet instinctive grace of newly fledged birds. He had seen them gather in the shadow of Mark's wings, looking to him for leadership as they had been trained to, and as they had done since childhood. He had known then that Earth had found its champions.

And now, perhaps, it was losing them.

Anderson forced the memories aside, tore his eyes from Mark's face, and turned instead to follow the sound of Keyop's tears to their source. The youngest member of G-Force leant across Princess's bed, his face buried in his folded arms. He wept with the abandon of a child. Anderson hesitated, hand half-extended, able only to see the boy's shock of brown hair and shaking back and shoulders. He had never been very tactile with his wards, and Keyop had little of the need to be held that most children displayed. Nonetheless, Anderson had seen the rest of the team patting or embracing him when the situation called for it, and if ever the teenager was in need of comfort, it was now.

He stepped up behind the boy and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Hush now, Keyop. You'll only wear yourself out."

The boy jumped, his powerful muscles flexing under Anderson's hand. The security chief took an involuntary step backwards, knowing the strength built into Keyop's wiry frame. Keyop spun to face him, fists scrubbing at his eyes.

"Not crying," he protested in defiance of all the evidence. Anderson gave him a steady look and Keyop's lips began to tremble. Anderson closed the gap between them, putting one hand on each of the boy's shaking shoulders and looking into his upturned face.

"Now, Keyop, would Princess want you to cry over her?"

Keyop seemed to give this careful consideration. "Perhaps just a little," he warbled with an attempt at a smile.

Anderson smiled back.

"Well yes, perhaps she would, just a little."

Keyop rubbed his eyes again.

"Can ... can they hear us?" he asked, looking down at Mark and Princess. Anderson hesitated, his eyes scanning the medical readouts and taking in their failing pulse and respiration, their erratically firing brainwaves. Probably not, he knew, but he answered with a different kind of truthfulness.

"It's possible. We can't be sure."

"Then I'll be brave," Keyop told him with a series of chirps that sounded a little brighter.

Anderson released his young friend's shoulders with a final pat.

"Good," he began, but his voice died away, drowned in the chiming of the centre's alarms.

"Red alert," Zark's voice informed everyone in the building. "Red alert, Center Neptune. Spectran robot attack detected on Planet Riga. All support teams report to positions immediately. Chief Anderson, please return to your office at once."

"The Phoenix is fuelled and ready to go," Tiny's voice emerged Keyop's wrist activator, sounding angry and ready for action. Keyop too seemed eager to get out there and fight the Spectra threat.

"On my way," he cried.

Anderson caught the boy's wrist, stopping Keyop as he headed for the door.

"No," he said, his voice loud enough to be picked up by Keyop's microphone. "Stand down, G-Force. You're not going out on this one. The Rigan air corps can cover it with Earth fighters for backup."

"Chief, what do you mean?" Tiny protested over the com-link. "We have to go!"

"Fight Spectra!" Keyop added urgently, twisting free of Anderson's grasp.

"Tiny, power down the Phoenix and return to the ready room - that's an order!"

"Well, I say we go," Tiny burst out with an unaccustomed rebellion. Keyop nodded, his whistling chirp assenting. Anderson watched Keyop helplessly as he backed away. The boy dropped into a ready-for-action crouch that the chief had never expected to see directed toward him. "You can't expect us to let them go after what they did to Princess and Mark!" Tiny's voice came now above the rumble of the Phoenix's engines. "Jason, where shall we pick you up? Jason ...?"

Anderson frowned anxiously. "Tiny, where's Jason?"

"He took his car out for a drive. He was sure in a funny mood."

"Jason, this is Anderson. Please respond!"

"Yeah, Jason," Tiny added. "Keyop and me need you on this one."

There was a long moment of silence before Jason's voice emerged from the speakers. He sounded tired and demoralised.

"You heard the chief, guys. We're not going."

In the cabin of the Phoenix, Tiny slid his hand backwards, powering down the Phoenix's engines. A tear pricked at his eyes as his spark of rebellion died.

In the medical room, Keyop gazed at Anderson with a hurt look of betrayal. He fled the medical room in tears, but heading towards the ready room, not the Phoenix's hanger.

Anderson bowed his head, looking away from the silent and unresponsive forms of his two wards. Shaking his head, he left the room.

* * *

The blue-trimmed car soared through the air, leaping from one bank of the stream to the other for no particular reason. There seemed no particular reason for anything any more. Jason tried to lose himself in the thrill of driving, and the knowledge that he was pitting himself and his vehicle against the vagaries of nature. It didn't work. The car was just another reminder - of his role as G-Force's second in command, and of the times when Mark or Princess had saved both him and his vehicle from certain destruction. Where was there justice, he asked himself, when Spectra was given free rein to rampage and destroy as it willed? 

Angry with the world in general, Jason parked his car on the cliff top of Center Neptune's artificial island and stood on the sharp-sided edge. The wind blew past his face, his brown hair snapping out behind him. He gazed across the wide, blue ocean and thought of their first return yesterday. He remembered the easy banter as he'd teased Princess. Then he recalled the frantic speed of their second homecoming. It was a long while before he turned away.

Anderson was waiting for him when he drove down the steep ramp that led from the Island's surface to Center Neptune below. Jason parked his car in its slot, between Keyop's orange bubble-car and Princess's bike. He stared angrily into the gloom of G-Force's garage, wondering how long he'd have to sit here before Anderson went away. Finally, he opened the door and slid out, tiring of the waiting game. No one had that much time.

"Any change?" he asked bluntly.

Anderson hesitated. "None for the better."

"You've been working on this for almost twenty-four hours!" Jason shook his head in frustration. "Haven't you come up with anything?"

Anderson bowed his head, sharing Jason's frustration and knowing that the young man hadn't intended his accusational tone.

"We've made progress, Jason," he said. "Just not enough. We know now why the implants misfired. The beam you encountered must have contained a high fraction of positive ions - no doubt to disrupt the negative current of normal electricity. That was sufficient to cause errors in key sections of the implants' bios - "

Jason held up a hand, stopping Anderson mid-flow.

"Spare me the science, chief. Just tell me how this helps Mark and Princess."

"It doesn't. It means that the implants are malfunctioning at a fundamental level. Anything drastic enough to stop the damage they're causing would kill Mark and Princess in the process."

"Then there's no hope."

"There's always hope, Jason. We haven't given up." Anderson hesitated, not wanting to change the subject, but knowing that dwelling on the problem was doing more harm than good. "Jason, I wanted to tell you that you did the right thing today."

Jason turned, striding away from his chief and out of the garage.

"Then why does it feel so wrong?"

* * *

The medical room seemed little changed since Jason had last been there but he could tell at a glance that Princess and Mark were running out of time. Their readings were dropping ever further into the critical zones. He knew that Anderson and the rest were still working flat out, but unless they came up with an answer soon, they would have been working for nothing. 

Keyop was lurking in one corner of the room and Jason started when he noticed him. The boy's shadowed eyes brightened as they saw Jason.

"Missed you," he said quietly.

"Yeah," Jason muttered a touch guiltily. "Sorry."

"Needed time to think?" Keyop guessed, his head tilted to one side. Jason smiled, ruffling Keyop's hair.

"Yeah, squirt. I guess so." He sighed, looking away. "Can you give me a few minutes here?"

Keyop nodded. He whistled sadly, and his hand caressed Princess's hair as he turned away towards the door.

"I'll be in the ready room," he told Jason, "with Tiny."

"I'll come find you," Jason promised.

The door closed behind the boy, plunging the room back into a gloom that was illuminated only by the medical equipment. Jason sank into the chair beside Mark's bed, feeling angry and helpless. An oxygen mask covered most of Mark's face, the steady inflation and deflation of the respirator betraying the fact that Mark was no longer breathing unaided. The commander's brown hair was soaked with sweat, brushed back from his face to make room for the pads that attached medical sensors to his temples. From the shoulders down, Mark was covered in a soft white sheet, but more wires trailed from under it, connecting Mark to the banks of machines beside him. Jason tried to see some sign of his commander beneath all the hardware, some evidence that his friend was still alive in fact, and not just in some medical fantasy.

"Well, I guess I ought to think of something to say," Jason said finally, breaking the silence. He hesitated, not knowing where to start.

Zoltar stole the moment from him.

The view-screen in one corner of the room crackled into life, confusing Jason for a few moments as he wondered which of the medical monitors was complaining. It took him only a couple of seconds to track down the source of the noise. Every room in Center Neptune had one of these basic communications devices, and every one would be showing the same distorted and static filled image of Zoltar.

The diabolic figure threw back his head, laughing in great bellows. He roared with laughter, the sound wild and abandoned. His unwilling audience throughout Center Neptune gritted their teeth and clenched their fists, knowing the sound would haunt them.

"Oh, what a game we play, my dear G-Force," he chortled eventually, his unusual success making him voluble in his good humour. "What a fascinating and complex game. I have sacrificed pawns along the way but now, it seems, I have taken your queen and her king. The board is mine! Already Spectra has a foothold on Planet Riga. Tremble, Earth, for we are on our way!"

His voice and image faded out over renewed laughter.

Jason's fist connected with the fading silhouette, shattering the communications screen. A few weak sparks crackled around his fist, and shards of plastic fell towards the floor. Jason breathed hard, trying to control his anger.

Slowly, he turned back towards his prone teammates.

"Game?" he said, angrily, to the still and silent forms. "Perhaps it was a game for us once, but we're not children any more - we haven't been that for a long time. Even Keyop knows that this isn't about any one of us - this is about being a team, it's about each of us contributing what we can, and it's about saving the Earth. I've been play-acting your role, pretending to be the wise commander. Well, I'm not you, Mark. I never will be. I'm in this team because I know how to take the battle to Spectra, and I know how to fight. It's time I did what I was good at!"

He strode towards the door, hesitating just inside it. He stepped back towards the beds, and put a hand on Mark's shoulder.

"I don't know if you can hear me, Mark, but I won't let Zoltar get away with this. I won't abandon Riga to Spectra - I know you wouldn't." He released Mark and turned instead to Princess, leaning over her to lay a kiss on her forehead. "Princess, I'm sorry."

* * *

Tiny tossed his spaceburger back down on its plate, its usual luscious taste turning to ashes in his mouth. Keyop had turned his back to the view-screen, his eyes burning with anger and his lips, rather unusually, set in a firm, silent line. 

Tiny climbed out of his chair, and crossed the room to the younger boy. He leaned back nonchalantly against the wall in front of Keyop, and kept his tone deliberately light.

"Huh, that Zoltar's got a screw loose if he thinks we've given up."

Keyop's rigid posture eased slightly, and he gave an indignant burble. "Screw loose - understatement!" he opined.

Tiny smiled, reaching out to ruffle Keyop's hair. Keyop raised a hand to swat him away, dodging out from under Tiny's reach.

They were both feeling a little better, their anxiety eased somewhat by one another's company, when the door burst open. Jason swept into the ready room like a compact thunderstorm. His expression was grim, and his movements were swift and precisely controlled.

"Jason - ?" Tiny asked, but his question was cut off. Jason drew his multipurpose gun from his thigh holster and fired it in one smooth motion. Tiny and Keyop instinctively dodged the net it cast, the two of them separating and darting to opposite sides of the room. Jason went after Keyop first, tossing one of the room's chairs towards Tiny to keep him busy.

Keyop dodged the older man's kicks, somersaulting clear with a look of wide-eyed confusion. Jason flipped backwards to confront Tiny, and the bigger man raised the same chair Jason had thrown to ward him off. With a quick motion, Tiny perched on the edge of the ping-pong table, lifting both feet to plant them firmly against Jason's chest and push him backwards.

Keyop came to Tiny's side. Both of them dropping into action-ready poses as Jason fell backwards into a graceful crouch.

"Jason, what on Earth do you think you're doing!" Tiny burst out angrily.

Jason laughed and there was no humour in the sound, only a kind of fierce satisfaction. "Well, I'd say your reaction times are back up to scratch," he said grimly.

"This was some kind of test?" Realisation began to dawn slowly on Tiny's face.

Jason looked up, his eyes shadowed by his dark hair.

"I don't know about you, but I'm getting rather tired of listening to Zoltar gloat. I thought I'd go tell him that. Want to come?"

Tiny and Keyop exchanged startled looks before grinning. This was the Jason they knew.

"Try stopping us!" Keyop said for both of them.

* * *

"Chief Anderson!" Zark's voice was urgent and somewhat alarmed. 

Anderson went on gazing at the printouts of his analysis for several seconds before looking up. The little robot who monitored Earth's security efforts was easily alarmed, verging on the neurotic. Finally, Anderson sighed, knowing that the results would not improve no matter how long he studied them.

"What is it, Zark?"

"The Phoenix has launched. I believe Jason, Tiny and Keyop are headed for Riga."

"No!" Anderson exclaimed, standing with hands flat on the table. He thumbed his communications terminal, flicking it to the preset he kept tuned to the Phoenix's frequency. "Jason! Tiny, Keyop, are you listening to me? Return to base immediately." Only silence answered his call. "Return to base!"

"They've gone into timewarp, Chief Anderson," Zark reported. The robot seemed to hesitate. "I'm sure they'll come back just fine. They are very highly trained and the Phoenix is a remarkable ship - it's just that Jason can be a little ... impulsive at times."

Anderson sank back into his chair, not reassured by Zark's platitudes. The three young people were going into danger unbriefed, and without their commander. But if Anderson wasn't prepared to throw chance to the wind now - as Jason had done - then that would be the way they'd stay. Perhaps Jason's impulsive decision had forced Anderson to one of his own. Slowly he raised his eyes to meet Zark's figure on the screen. The robot looked nervous, his customary optimism dented by recent events.

"Zark, I have an idea, but I need you to check my calculations - to check them exactly, mind you! There is no margin for error."

* * *

It was a desperate gamble, but then, they were playing for high stakes. It had taken Zark only a few minutes analysis to come back with the estimation that this had one chance in ten of working. It pained Anderson that the chances of Mark and Princess surviving even a few more hours without such intervention had now fallen to one in a thousand or worse. 

The principle was simple: it was software damage that had made the implants malfunction, so why not just wipe the software and start again? The answer was equally simple: Princess and the commander would not survive the shock of such a process.

Shock, Anderson thought grimly, as Center Neptune's staff prepared to implement his plan. Ironic that that was what all this came down to. Mark lay in the centre of the white painted room, with both medical staff and technicians bustling around him. Anderson watched as the bed was surrounded by a fine-meshed metal cage, the wires which connected Mark to the life support equipment fed carefully through the mesh. Every connection was checked and rechecked, an argument breaking out between the technicians and medics at one point over priority. Anderson stopped the argument with a sharp word and a glare. His staff broke off, knowing what the young G-Force team meant to their security chief and their entire planet.

It took twenty minutes before everything was as prepared as it could be and the bustle became that of people trying to look busy rather than that of those with a purpose. Anderson ordered the room cleared, and the bustle died away. Only a few remained - a couple of doctors, the centre's chief programmer, Anderson himself and Mark. Anderson peered through the wire mesh at his ward and gritted his teeth.

"Everything is prepared, sir," the programmer said simply.

"Disconnect," Anderson ordered in a sharp tone.

Most of the connections were computer controlled, the wires falling away from the medical equipment with a soft pop. Others had to be disconnected by hand, and those were pulled by those present, moving with the swift precision of people drilled in the task.

"Clear," one of the doctors reported.

Anderson nodded. "Start the process!" he ordered.

The electric current arched Mark's back and convulsed his limbs. Sparks flew outwards, trapped by the Faraday cage of the wire mesh. Mark trembled, helpless in the flow of power that engulfed him. Anderson felt tears fill his eyes and knew that his face carried the same look of horror he'd seen on Jason's face the day before as he reported what had happened. One of the doctors took a step forward, and the programmer grasped him by the arm, holding him back.

"We're going for a full bios wipe! It's got to be thirty seconds to clear the old code - thirty seconds or this hasn't a hope of working!"

Anderson took in the words too, as keen as the doctor was to release Mark from the thrashing convulsions of the sustained electric shock. He closed his eyes to the torment, silently counting off the seconds. He opened them with five seconds remaining, watching as the timer counted down on the screen.

He didn't need to give another order. All four men leapt to Mark's side as the counter reached zero, cutting off the flow of current, reconnecting the monitors and the other cables. The life support equipment shrieked, no pulse, no respiration, but there was no panic.

"Uploading new core programming and emergency protocols now," the computer technician reported with clipped tones.

"Is it working?" Anderson asked tightly. The programmer squinted at his console, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

"Too early to tell," he muttered. He looked up. "Activating the implant!"

Mark convulsed again, once, as his cerebronic implant sent out a new set of signals. The emergency protocols Anderson had devised were dangerous, dramatic, but they were Mark's only hope. For a moment the world and everyone in it seemed to hold their breath, then Mark breathed in a long shuddering breath.

"I have a pulse!" one of the doctors cried as the cardiac monitor's scream broke into a more complacent chirp.

Anderson gasped too, starting to dare to hope. It had been a risk - the power surge could have burned out the device as easily as it had wiped it, but they'd been lucky. Mark's implant was doing what it was meant to - regulating his bio-systems - but had they acted quickly enough?

"All readings suggest normal implant action. No random signals, no sign of stray code," the technician reported. "Biological repair systems activated."

"Brain wave readings?" Anderson demanded.

"Stabilised," one of the doctors reported cautiously. Anderson stepped to his side, scanning the EEG readouts.

"Delta waves appear normal, some sign of theta wave activity," he muttered to himself. It was a good sign. He had been terrified that he would see nothing, that they would have saved Mark's body, but lost his mind. Even so, Mark remained deeply unconscious. It would take time for him to recover from the damage that his implant had done, but - Anderson smiled - he would recover.

Anderson clapped his hands together briskly. "I want the Commander monitored round the clock. Inform me at once if there's any change. Now, get Princess in here!"

* * *

The Phoenix came out of timewarp and entered Riga's atmosphere like a bolt of red and blue. Tiny gripped her controls tightly, even as he shook the confusion of faster than light travel out of his head. He levelled the ship off ten kilometres above the ground: low enough to get a clear view of the ground, high enough to be clear of most ground-based weaponry. 

Keyop gave a chirp. "Rigan fighters," he reported as he peered into his scanners. The communications system chimed. "Hailing us."

"Ignore them!" Jason ordered sharply. He clenched his fist. "We're not turning back now. Zoltar's got some payback coming to him, and nothing is going to stop us!"

Tiny looked at his displays, keeping the Phoenix flying in a level and straight line. "They're falling in to either side of us, Jason. I think they're here to fly with us, not to fight us."

Jason smiled a tight, bitter smile. "It looks like Anderson thinks we need backup."

"Fine with me," Keyop grinned.

Jason pointed a stern finger at him. "You just watch those scanners. Find us the Spectrans."

"Doing it," Keyop warbled with a determined air.

The Spectran robot was not difficult to find. The swathe of destruction was clearly visible as Tiny brought them sweeping over Riga's capital city. The enormous serpent had cracked buildings into rubble in a belt a mile wide as its snake-like body undulated from side to side. Ground forces fired ineffectually at the creature. Cannon shells made it flinch occasionally, or lash out in anger, but did not significantly impede its forward motion.

The serpent turned as the Phoenix approached. Missiles flashed towards them and Tiny turned the ship into a steep climb. To either side of the G-Force vessel, scarlet painted fighters peeled off and turned in graceful arcs. Smaller projectiles spat from those scarlet noses, picking off the missiles in a series of mid-air bursts.

The Phoenix burst through that curtain of smoke and fire without changing course, bearing down on the serpent as if any such petty distraction were a mere irrelevance. Jason was already firing on the robot, targeting each missile carefully despite the Phoenix's rate of fire.

The serpent reared, rocket nozzles blasting out streams of fire and supporting it against gravity. Huge flaps fanned out with a series of metallic thuds, surrounding the serpent's head like the hood of some monstrous cobra.

"Take us around it," Jason ordered in a tight, angry voice.

"Big ten."

Tiny swung the Phoenix into a tight spiral, the ship vibrating as it was buffeted by the rocket exhausts. From short range, the Phoenix's missiles penetrated the robot's hull as if it were sugar paper, and they left fire in their wake. The serpent hung still in the air, but it was a wounded beast now, flame roaring through the holes spiralling its hull like a second set of rocket nozzles.

It took just a few minutes for the Phoenix to reach the head of the beast, circling around the back of its hood before coming to meet the aggressor face to face. The Rigan fighters were harrying the beast, firing their painfully small missiles at it, doing little more than offering a distraction from the more powerful Phoenix. But the serpent knew where its biggest threat came from. Even as it began to list to one side, it turned in the sky, trying to face the fast moving Phoenix.

The metal plates of the serpent's hood turned with a curiously loud grating noise, setting the teeth of the Phoenix's crew on edge. Keyop covered his ears, his expression becoming a grimace. Jason too winced at the sound, his finger trembling as he tried to focus on the firing button.

"That's bright!" Tiny gasped as the mirrored inner surfaces of the hood turned to the sun. The parabolic disk it formed was suddenly dazzling, the light blinding even in the Phoenix's cabin.

Jason gasped, feeling as if his eyes were burning through closed lids. The air felt like the inside of a furnace, painful to breathe and impossible to see through. A lens, he realised. A lens and the Phoenix was at its focus. All the power of Riga's hot sun was being concentrated here, cooking the ship, cooking them all.

There was a moment of dazzling clarity in Jason's thoughts - the realisation that he had led them into this situation. He had dived in with no thought but to blow the aggressor into a million burning pieces. Mark would have been more cautious. Mark would have wondered what the space cobra was waiting for.

Jason's hand still rested near the firing button. Straining for breath, he moved his hand across the console to another set of controls. "Fiery Phoenix!" he gasped.

* * *

The transition to Fiery Phoenix was never easy. With only three of them aboard, the strain was actually painful. Keyop whimpered as the ship bucked around them, and Tiny gave a strangled grunt. Then the transmutation caught them all. The Phoenix was born in fire, like her mythological namesake, and she saw with eyes of flame. Jason, Tiny, Keyop and something indefinable, something that could only be the Phoenix herself, mingled and became one. The Phoenix screamed, but it was a scream of pleasure, the fire of the focused sun bathed her, warmed her, easing the pain of her transition. The heat that had so pained her inanimate form was the Fiery Phoenix's natural environment, but even here she felt weak, she felt ... empty. The Phoenix was a creature of primal instinct, her actions shaped by the minds that formed her gestalt. She turned now in burning, animal rage on the snake in front of her, but she hesitated. The drive was there, the playful exuberance, the freedom and confidence in the skies, but something was missing from within her. Where was the firm sense of direction that usually guided her actions? Where was the deep compassion that moderated her aggressive drive? The Phoenix felt herself confused and torn, driven to the attack but unsure of how to carry it out! 

She hesitated and in that moment, the life of the Phoenix, the existence of G-Force itself hung in the balance.

* * *

Mark's eyelids fluttered open and then shut again. He winced, the dim lights of the room seeming to stab straight into his brain. Confused and hurting, he tried to glean some kind of information from his brief glimpse of the room, but only a haze of blurred colours remained. 

"Commander? Commander, lie still. I'll inform Chief Anderson you're conscious."

Opening his eyes by the narrowest of slits, Mark tried to sit, but the gentle hands of the nurse pressed him back. He gave in, lying still, trying to make sense of a confusing world. Through a haze of sedatives and painkillers, memories started slowly to return. 'Commander', that was him, white wings against the storm clouds of ... of Spectra. With the name, the floodgates opened. He remembered the battles, the wind roaring past his face, his wings flaring wide behind him. And he remembered staring into the face of the assault ship, the energy gathering at its nose. He remembered never expecting to remember anything again.

He began to struggle weakly, unable even to fight his way out of his bedcovers. His team? Princess? She had been behind him - what had become of her?

Again the nurse held him down, preventing him from injuring himself.

"Princess?" he muttered, and she leaned down to hear his whisper.

"Princess was hurt, but she's recovering," Anderson's voice spoke from the doorway, and Mark wondered why his guardian sounded so relieved to deliver the news. He tried to think clearly, but his anxiety for his team hadn't faded. For some reason Jason's voice echoed through his head, screaming defiance into the face of Spectra. If he'd been as badly hurt as it appeared why wasn't any of his team here? Why was he so sure that Jason was doing something rash?

Anderson had come to stand by his side. The chief seldom showed affection towards any of his wards, but now his eyes were shining with a gladness Mark didn't fully understand.

"Where ..." Mark's voice was hoarse and every sound sent shooting pains through his head, but he struggled onward. "Where's Jason?"

Anderson hesitated. "You just rest, Mark," he said quietly. "Don't worry about anything until you're well again."

Even in pain and drugged into a daze, the reply made something clench deep within Mark. Anderson was avoiding his question; Jason was in trouble. Mark's eyes drifted shut as he tried to think, and he heard Anderson turn away to speak to the nurse. Opening his eyes in a squint, Mark tried to focus. It had to be close, Anderson wouldn't have ... There! His wrist activator was on the table by his head, its familiar blue band a striking contrast to the clinical whiteness of the rest of the room. Mark's limbs seemed reluctant to obey his commands. His muscles ached as if every part of his body had been under some great strain. Nonetheless, with gritted teeth, Mark forced his hand to reach out, snagging the wrist-strap of his activator. The effort left him feeling weak, but, eyes closed once more, he found the strength to move just one finger, tapping out a code on his communicator. 'Where are you?' he called silently. 'Report in.'

His finger fell away from the communicator as exhaustion swept over him once again. By the time Anderson turned back to him, Mark was asleep once again.

* * *

The Phoenix screamed at the serpent rearing in front of her. She flared her wings, ready to throw caution to the winds and dive at the enemy, burning him with the heat of her fury. 

She froze, her head jerking round to stare towards distant Earth. The pulsing of the three wrist activators within her was felt on some deeply instinctual level, below conscious thought. The Phoenix knew only that she was being called and that the call made her glad to the depths of her spirit. Delight broke through the anger that clouded her eyes. The primal rage that had filled her thoughts softened, became a more rational determination to drive this creature from her territory.

She turned, her fiery wings blending with the solar energy still focussed upon her, and dived. The serpent had no limbs with which to defend its eyes as the Fiery Phoenix gripped the cobra's head with her claws, pecking at first one dull red eye and then the other. Reinforced glass shattered under the assault, revealing deck after deck of machinery, and where the outside of each eye had been fireproofed, the inner decks had not. The pressurised atmosphere that filled the serpent ignited, becoming a firestorm. The serpent began to tumble from the sky, falling in careless coils. Ground forces and Rigan fighter jets raced to get out from under the creature as it collapsed, the Fiery Phoenix still gripping its fire-filled head. The Phoenix released its prey with a triumphant scream, spiralling slowly skywards. The flames fell away from her as she rose into the sky, metallic blues and reds emerging from within the curtain of fire. The Fiery Phoenix slept.

Exhaustion filled Jason, Tiny and Keyop, pushing them to the very edge of consciousness. They lay slumped over their consoles, struggling to disentangle their own thoughts from the primal intensity of the Fiery Phoenix's gestalt. As usual, Tiny's need to pilot his ship carried him through, his hands reaching for the controls and levelling her climb without much need for actual thought.

Jason flinched as he roused. His skin felt sore and he knew it would be reddened from the scorching the Phoenix had received. The transmutation had helped, the boost of energy speeding his healing process. All that was no more than a background to his thoughts though. He stared at his wrist activator in hope and amazement. It was silent and dark, but surely ...

He coughed, his throat parched. "Did you ...?"

Keyop looked up blearily, but with wide eyes. "Felt it," he said with a tired warble.

"Mark called," Tiny added with complete certainty.

Then why did he stop? Jason wondered, but he didn't say anything out loud. He forced himself to sit up straight, starting to shake off the strain of transmutation now, and peered through the view-screen. The Rigan fighters still flanked them, slightly fewer of them now, but all matching the Phoenix as she circled above the devastation of the Spectran machine.

"Being hailed," Keyop reported, putting the radio signal through.

"Good job, G-Force!" The captain of the Rigan fighter wing called. "We could hardly scratch the thing. You were amazing."

Jason sighed, looking at the two empty seats in the Phoenix's cabin. He tried not to think how close they had come to losing control of the Phoenix entirely. Reaching out he activated his microphone. "Glad to help," he lied, and he knew he sounded weary. "We're heading back to Earth."

"God speed, Phoenix," the Rigan saluted.

Jason nodded. He cut the signal, and Keyop changed radio frequencies without being asked.

"Chief Anderson?" Jason asked, not daring to voice the question.

"Jason, thank God!" Anderson's exclamation was uncharactisically vehement. "Are you safe? Are Tiny and Keyop? Is the Phoenix? We found a treatment for Mark and Princess - Mark was asking for you!"

Jason smiled, and his smile broadened as Keyop burst into tears behind him.

"Tell him we're on our way, Chief!"

* * *

Mark relaxed in his hammock, watching through half open eyes as Tiny and Jason tossed a Frisbee between them with Keyop playing piggy in the middle. Princess lay half curled on a couch by the pool, contemplating the chess board that sat between her and the chief. 

It had been a strange month. The first few days had passed in a blur, with Mark only vaguely aware of the chief or his teammates sitting with him. He just knew how relieved he was to see them safe. Gradually his body had repaired the damage that had been done to it, and only then did he realise that Princess had been as seriously ill as himself.

It had been two weeks, even with their accelerated healing abilities, before the two of them had been fit enough to get out of their beds, and by then the walls had started to come down. Center Neptune couldn't remember every defeat and every near tragedy, or it would cease to function entirely. A façade fell into place, the incident 'forgotten' by mutual unspoken agreement.

Despite that, and through the two weeks of fitness training, Jason had told him what had happened. Or some of it perhaps. Mark was never sure quite how much Jason was keeping to himself, just as he was never sure how many of the words he seemed to remember hearing in Jason's voice had ever actually been spoken. In any case, Mark knew what Princess had done for him, and he knew that she would brush it off if he ever spoke of it.

And so he put his gratitude in his eyes, and he saw that she had seen it. She looked up at him now, and a mischievous smile brushed her lips. Mark lay back, closing his eyes and smiling himself. Whatever mischief she was planning could wait. He was too relaxed to worry about it now.

He flinched as a sponge full of cold water hit his face, and the hammock swung wildly with the motion, dumping him to the ground. He looked up to find Keyop giggling, and realised that Princess had distracted him at a crucial moment. Ah, teamwork! He spluttered indignantly, but he was laughing too.

Jason gave him a hand up, and perhaps his friend was just a little too solicitous, but no one would comment on it. Just another of the games they played to keep themselves sane.

"This is 7-Zark-7." The voice came from five wrist activators and from Anderson's radio. "We have an emergency situation. Spectra activity has been reported on Planet Alpha."

G-Force tensed, the five of them falling an action-ready poise. Mark turned to face Anderson, half a step ahead of the rest of his team. Anderson looked up to see them silhouetted against the sky. Five fit and healthy young people ready to save the world - champions.

Spectra had been quiet these last few weeks - licking their wounds and rebuilding their resources after the unsuccessful battle of wits against G-Force. After Riga, they would never know how close they'd come to winning. But now, perhaps, they felt ready once again to take on G-force at their own game.

The team was certainly ready for them.

"Go to it, G-Force," Anderson said simply.

**The End**


End file.
